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the ferry
from Parapat to Samosir Island Indonesia, Lake Toba, Samosir Island, Tuk Tuk,
19-02-2009.
Nets on the quay spread out in the early morning sun to dry and yellow colored plastic crates full with fish caught during the night, attracting huge number of gulls in search of free breakfast, screaming while flying overhead, diving down during a moment of inattention to steal a fat pike, his mates waiting up there in the air, gliding on their wings, waiting for the bold featherly fish thief, ready to discuss his prize....
I'm waiting for the ferry to depart for Samosir Island while making quick sketches in my scrap book of these winged fish pirates, admiring the freedom they have and the outright disregard they have for us mortal human beings, despicable we are in the beady eyes of a third world gull, just about good enough for free fat pike for breakfast.
I'm the only Ferringy aboard this ferry sharing it with several Batak women of varying ages, dressed in grimy dresses and eating Nasi Goreng with greasy fingers of the right hand - remember what you are supposed to use your left hand for in this part of the world? - from a unpacked banana
Parapat
on market day leaf. The gaps in their yellow stained dental works are clearly visible while they stuff the Nasi down their throats, belching while they absent-mindedly throw a cleanly picked chicken bone into the dark waters of Lake Toba.
I'm in Batak territory now, a proud and stubborn tribe who can trace their origins back to the Karen villages in Northern Burma and Siam, are tradionally catholic in the Muslim stronghold of Sumatra but are rumoured to have cooked the first missionaries in the Batak cooking pots before bowing to the Roman Faith, bet that was an unexpected and unpleasant surprise to these so-called Men of God being eaten by those they came to convert, their white European flesh going down hungry native throats, being transformed into human energy and the remaining wastes sh*t out and used for fertiliser on their rice paddies.
Yeah the path of the God-Send doesn't always go across a road of rose petals!!!
Nowadays though, Europeans are warmly welcomed bringing in hard needed dough that can be used to send the brighteste of the village boys to college in Medan, or the even further away Jakarta on Java.
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Minas
non-member comment
WHAT ?
Where do you get your "facts" about the Batak people in this unflattering piece of journalism ? The Batak people tracing their origins to the Karen people of Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar), this is the first time I have heard of this, are you able to prove this ? Please do The Bataks were cannibals at one time, who would eat convicted criminals, not just anyone. I suppose they thought of the first German Christian missionaries as criminals. I think it would be more factual to state that Sumatra is a Christian stronghold in a Muslim country. There are some Muslim Bataks peoples but most are Christians who are very serious about their faith. Some are Roman Catholic, some Orthodox, but most are Protestants, they even have their own Batak national church which most belong to, the Huria Kristen Batak Protestant (HKBP), which translates into the Batak Christian Protestant Church, is the largest Protestant denomination in Indonesia, with a reported membership of almost three million faithful. I can hardly believe the Bataks used human shit as a fertilizer for their rice paddies, is that how they grow food in your country ? There are many very beautiful Batak women ( my wife being one) and they are highly prized as wives by many of the ethnic groups in Indonesia as well as Europeans since marriage traditions are a intricate part of their culture and they are known for being faithful ,loving and family oriented spouses Please, my friend, do better research about people and places before writing any more pieces of sensational fiction for your travel blog